


I’ve Got a Ghost to Keep Me Warm

by burglebezzlement



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, Ghost Hunters, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, New York City, Paranormal Investigators, Snow, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-22 13:37:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17663657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: Erin, Holtz, a snowy night, and a ghost. What could be better? Well, maybe not having hypothermia. That might help.





	I’ve Got a Ghost to Keep Me Warm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rina (rinadoll)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinadoll/gifts).



> Happy Chocolate Box!
> 
> The Varick Mansion is invented, although I drew inspiration from several real mansions on the Upper East Side. The names are a nod to the location of the actual Ghostbusters firehouse, which is at the corner of North Moore and Varick.

GHOSTBUSTERS CALLED TO HISTORIC VARICK MANSION  
_Marley Moore, Curbed NY_

Fans of the Varick Mansion’s Versailles-inspired exterior were saddened last year to hear that a developer had purchased the historic residence. Thanks to preservation efforts by a community reluctant to see another historical landmark torn down to build condominiums, the Gilded Era mansion’s unique exterior is safe from the wrecking ball. 

But when the new owners, operators of a boutique hotel firm, began renovations, they discovered that the mansion’s golden past might not be as far in the past as they thought….

* * *

It’s snowing when they leave the Firehouse. Just a few flakes, spiraling down to the street to melt immediately, but Erin knows there’s more to come. It’s late afternoon, but it feels like dusk already as Holtz parks Ecto 2 on a side street a few blocks away from Varick Mansion.

“So why are we busting during a snow storm?” Holtz asks.

“Because Patty’s still researching the history of the house for us, and Abby cheats at rock paper scissors.” Erin checks her pack before swinging the rear door shut. “And the mayor called about it, and he’s the one funding our research. And the developers said the ghost is strongest in bad weather, so….”

“All good reasons.” Holtz pats Ecto 2 before setting the alarms. 

Varick Mansion faces Fifth Avenue. Erin squints up at the opulent exterior, which is softened by the falling snow. The townhouses adjoining the mansion are lit up, windows glowing softly as people go about their lives. The windows of Varick Mansion are dark and empty, the stoop vacant, the door barred.

The Ghostbusters wait on the steps for a few minutes, hunched over against the wind and snow, before Erin gives in and calls the construction manager. He tells her that the crew’s gone home for the day and gives her the code to the lock box on the door.

“And don’t sue us if anything goes wrong,” he says, before hanging up on her.

“Nice guy,” Erin says, dryly.

Holtz spins the numbers on the lock. “I could have picked this,” she says. “They’re protecting a multi-million dollar mansion with something I could have hacked open with bolt cutters.”

Erin shrugs. “Maybe they’re trusting the ghost to scare people off.”

“A diversification opportunity.” Holtz pulls the lock off the door. “We can bust your ghosts, or we can train them to be your spectral watchdogs.”

Inside, the mansion is dark and cold. The walls are stripped down to uneven horsehair plaster, broken in places where the contractors must have been adding new wiring and plumbing. When the door slams shut behind them, it blocks out the sounds of the wind and the traffic, leaving Erin and Holtz in muffled silence.

“Creepy.” Holtz says it approvingly.

Erin puts the spare traps down and pulls the PKE meter from her coveralls. It begins spinning lazily when she switches it on. Whatever else might be going on here, there’s a spectral energy trace.

They move through the rooms slowly, starting with the first floor and working upwards, leaving the basement for last by silent agreement. As they go up, the rooms look less like a construction site and more like abandoned rooms. There’s a room packed full of furniture, stacked tightly together — things the hotel people are keeping, Erin wonders?

The electricity must have been turned off, because the light switches don’t work. The construction workers have strung temporary lights, but the generator that must be powering them them isn’t on, so Erin and Holtz have to rely on their LED headlamps as it gets darker outside. 

Further up, they get into the former servant’s attics, cold and dreary, the walls exposed brick with sloppy mortar thickly furred with dust. The windows are low under the eaves, and Erin can see the snow’s gotten heavier outside. There’s a chill as the wind comes in around the poorly fitted windows, and the PKE spins faster for a moment before stilling.

They’re on their way down the back staircase when the PKE meter starts spinning faster again. 

Erin sees the light first, coming from the basement. Just a faint blue glow at first, but then it grows stronger.

“Down there,” she says, her voice low.

“Why is it always the basement?” Holtz groans and then nods. “I’ve got a trap. Let’s go.”

The basement stairs are narrow wood, the treads uneven under Erin’s feet. She holds on to the handrail with one hand and her proton wand with the other, remembering the last time an apparition caught them off-guard.

There’s a vapor in the corner of the basement, pulsing blue and white. As they watch, the spectral light begins to coalesce into the shape of a woman, facing away from them. She’s wearing a long dress, printed with a pattern Erin can’t quite make out. Long, pale hair streams down her back.

Erin takes a step toward her before she feels Holtz’s hand on her arm.

“She’s beautiful,” Erin says. She takes her phone out with her free hand to take a picture. 

The phone’s fake shutter sound is loud in the empty basement, and the ghost turns to look at them, beautiful and horrible. There’s a blank space where her face should be, a crawling darkness, a hole ripped in the ghost’s plasm. 

Erin freezes. Her feet feel like they’re stuck to the dirt floor of the basement. She can’t turn to run. 

“Go for busting,” Holtz yells, over the sound of the basement windows all shattering at once. “Erin? Erin!”

Erin tears herself free. Her hands are trembling as she switches on her proton pack and fires. 

The light sizzles, holding the ghost for a moment before she breaks away.

The ghost sweeps towards Erin, her face a terrifying darkness surrounded by burning light. Erin fires her proton pack again, but the ghost keeps coming. Holtz yells, opening the trap, the warm white light streaming out into the basement.

Erin tries to dodge, but the ghost hits her full-on, weightless and heavy at the same time, knocking the breath from her and sending her tumbling to the dirt floor. She can see Holtz, frantically waving her proton pack’s wand, but the ghost is inside Erin, reaching deep inside her, pulling warmth from Erin instead of the air around them.

 _So cold,_ Erin thinks, and she’s not sure if it’s her thought or the ghost’s. _So cold, the snowflakes catching in her hair, the thin fabric of her dress useless against the wind —_

“Get out of her!” Holtz screams, waving the proton pack’s wand at the ghost.

Erin can barely hear Holtz. She’s shivering uncontrollably, trapped in a memory not her own, a memory of another blizzard, long ago.

She doesn’t see the trap open, next to her helpless body. But she feels the searing agony of the ghost being dragged down into it, being pulled down into the light. And then she knows no more.

* * *

“Still too cold,” Holtz says, frantically. 

Erin hears her like she’s a long way away. She wants to answer, but she can’t find the energy. It’s dark here, wherever this is, and she’s stopped shivering.

She feels like she’s floating away.

Her arms are limp as she feels Holtz peel off her coverall and hold her close, skin warm against Erin’s. 

“Erin?”

Holtz sounds scared. Erin wants to come back from the darkness, wants to reassure her, but she can’t find her voice.

Holtz holds her tighter. “This isn’t how I wanted this,” Holtz says, her voice low. “Never wanted it like —” She stops. “Erin? Erin, come back. Tell me I didn’t rip your spirit out along with the ghost.”

She’s quiet then, spooning Erin, arms around her, front pressed to Erin’s back, legs tangled together. Her breath warm against Erin’s ear.

Erin can’t judge time. She’s not sure how long she’s been in this dark place, this dark quiet letting-go place, when she feels herself start to come back.

She starts shivering again. It’s like something has broken, some hold that the ghost still had.

“Holtz?” she asks, her voice weak.

“Erin!” Holtz doesn’t let her go. “Are you okay? Tell me you’re okay. The PKE meter said the spirit was gone, but I didn’t believe it.”

Erin wraps her arms around Holtz’s body, holding herself tighter to Holtz’s warmth. “I’m cold,” she says, hating herself for how weak she sounds. “Holtz….”

“I’m here.” Holtz rubs her hands up and down Erin’s arms, warming Erin’s skin. “I’m here, Erin.”

They lay like that, Erin shivering uncontrollably, Holtz warm against her.

“She didn’t want to hurt me,” Erin says, once her teeth have stopped chattering violently. “She was just cold, Holtz. So cold.”

“Don’t think about it,” Holtz says. “Think warm thoughts. Walking through Central Park in August. The boiler room at the Firehouse.”

Erin laughs. “No tropical islands?”

“I’ve never been to a tropical island,” Holtz says. “But I have had the air conditioning go out in the lab.”

 _We should go to an island together,_ Erin thinks, imagining it, imagining Holtz in a bikini and her safety goggles, lying on a recliner with a coconut-based drink in her hands. She smiles.

Holtz lets go, and Erin wants to tell her not to. To tell her not to leave. The air in the room is freezing cold against her skin before Holtz drapes a dusty blanket over her. 

“Just a few minutes, Erin, I promise. I need to get a fire lit before it gets any colder in here.”

There’s a fireplace in the room, and Erin watches as Holtz brings in wood and uses her proton pack to light a fire. The flames dance wildly before calming down.

Holtz drags a dusty couch over to the fire, and then comes back to Erin. She helps Erin up from the floor and over to the couch before settling down next to her.

Still close. Still warm. Erin snuggles in against her, not caring about the dust or the dirt.

“I shouldn’t have left you,” Holtz says, running her hands up and down Erin’s arm, chaffing Erin’s skin. “You’re dead cold, Gilbert.”

Slowly, Erin feels feeling return to her fingers and toes, first tingly and then burning. Holtz must have dragged her up to the second floor, because she can see a street light out the window, shaking in the wind of the storm, the snowflakes briefly catching in the light before tumbling away.

“The fire,” Erin says. “What did you find to burn?”

Holtz strokes her finger down Erin’s arm. “Knew the body heat wouldn’t be enough.”

“Patty’s going to be pissed if you burned antiques.”

Holtz presses her lips to Erin’s temple before letting go. “Patty’s going to be happy you’re alive.”

Slow, the heat from the fire and from Holtz beside her lets Erin relax. Her fingers and toes stop tingling. Outside, the wind’s picked up, blurring the streetlights behind halos of snowflakes.

Erin lets her head drop to Holtz’s shoulder, and Holtz is quiet for a moment before pulling Erin closer. Holtz, who never seems to be still, sits and watches the fire crackling on the hearth, watches the snow blow across the window. 

Something deep inside Erin relaxes. She shouldn’t feel at home here, inside a half-torn-apart old house, recently de-haunted.

Maybe home isn’t a place, Erin thinks, as Holtz shifts against her.

“Holtz?”

“Mmm?” Holtz is staring out the window at the snow.

“What did you mean?” Erin asks, before she loses her courage. “When you were first trying to warm me up. You said you didn’t want it like this.”

She feels Holtz go still beside her. Holtz, always so full of motion, always on the move —

“It was nothing,” Holtz says. “I was panicking.”

 _If it was nothing, she wouldn’t be reacting like this,_ Erin thinks, as the pieces fall together in her mind. Holtz dancing, setting things on fire — giving her a knife — the way Holtz goes uncomfortable and still when she tries to talk about emotional things.

Erin turns to Holtz and brushes her thumb over Holtz’s cheek. Holtz shivers.

Erin leans in, lips soft against Holtz’s. Holtz moves like ice breaking, like winter turning to spring, her body going warm and soft against Erin’s.

“I thought I lost you,” Holtz says, pulling back, her breath short.

Erin leans back in. “I’m not that easy to lose.”

Outside, the wind blows harder, pelting the outside of the mansion with icy flakes. But inside, Erin and Holtz have found another way to keep each other warm.


End file.
